


Day By Day

by shesbreathless



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Daydreaming, Fluff, M/M, this week's episode was really sad leave me alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 20:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shesbreathless/pseuds/shesbreathless
Summary: He really just wants to go to bed and wake up when it’s already tomorrow, when it’ll hopefully be sunny and the worst of the tragedy will have passed.Then he has an idea. “Close your eyes,” he tells Nico.





	Day By Day

Levi lets all of his weight drop down on the bench, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. This is the first time today he’s sitting still and not running around the hospital with dozens of blood bags in his arms, and he plans on taking advantage of it as long as he can.

There are tears prickling behind his closed eyelids, but he doesn’t have the energy to cry right now. He can still hear the screams and feel the blood on his hands, but he’s too tired to do anything about it.

He takes a deep breath, and another one after that, and his head feels like it clears up a little bit. The heavy weight on his heart doesn’t move an inch, but he guesses he can take this one step at a time.

The thing is, he’d known that becoming a surgeon wouldn’t be easy. Usually it’s exhilarating, handling organs and saving people’s lives, and most of the time he can focus on the good, but when the bad happens, it’s really bad.

Today was full of bad. The rain pouring down incessantly since yesterday morning was bad, the ambulances coming in one after the other without pause were bad, the amount of people that came in and never got out were definitely bad.

Levi has never had to call time of death so many times in the same day before, the words almost losing their meaning by the time he was done. That is, until the families started arriving.

“Oof,” Levi breathes out loudly when the lump in his throat threatens to choke him.

He’s had to tell the bad news to spouses, and parents, and siblings before, but today was a whole different kind of hard. He can’t get their expressions out of his mind, shocked at first and distraught soon after that. He’s never felt this helpless, and he hates it.

His mom always told him he’s too sensitive for this job, and he always got mad at her for that. He realises it kind of proves her point, but he also would pick caring too much over not caring at all any day.

It just sucks, feeling so bad for people he doesn’t know, knowing he’ll be okay at the end of the day while so many people have months, years of grief in front of them. His heart hurts for all of them.

He’s about to physically shake himself out of it and get up to go find something to do before he has an actual meltdown, but somebody lays one hand on his shoulder, startling him.

“Hi, babe.”

Levi cracks one eye open and looks up at Nico, who squeezes his shoulder and circles the bench to sit down next to him. He has dark circles under his eyes, so obviously tired but still offering a kind smile.

The atmosphere in the hospital now that things have quieted down is heavy and haunting, but Levi feels better just seeing Nico’s face. The tub of ice cream he’s carrying also makes warmth spread in his chest and a smile appear on his lips.

“Is it chocolate?” Levi asks quietly.

“It’s chocolate,” Nico nods.

Levi accepts the spoon Nico is offering him, doing quick work of opening the tub and digging in. He can see Nico looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and he can tell the exact moment he thinks about asking Levi if he’s okay, so he turns the spoon in Nico’s direction and motions for him to open up.

Nico smiles like he knows exactly what he’s doing, but he still leans forward to wrap his lips around the spoon. Levi smiles at him and gets some for himself, both of them eating in silence.

They should probably talk about today, even just to make it all feel real, but for now the ice cream is enough.

“I wish it were sunny,” Nico says after a while.

Something about the way he says it makes the lump in Levi’s throat come back stronger than before, so he shoves another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and hopes it goes away. It doesn’t, of course, because Nico sighs and it brings so much pain from today that Levi himself can feel it.

He really just wants to go to bed and wake up when it’s already tomorrow, when it’ll hopefully be sunny and the worst of the tragedy will have passed.

Then he has an idea. “Close your eyes,” he tells Nico.

Eyebrow raised in a silent question, Nico turns to look at him and steals the spoon to get some ice cream, but ultimately complies. He leans back so he’s more comfortable and lets his eyelids slip shut, sighing deeply and waiting for more instructions.

Levi allows himself a couple of seconds to just look at him, then slips his fingers between Nico’s and closes his own eyes.

The dark feels immediately better than the view of the rain-covered windows on the wall they’re sitting in front of. The noise of water falling to the ground remains, but he can work around it.

“We’re not in Seattle anymore,” he begins, and he hears Nico hum. “We’re somewhere warm, on the beach, sunbathing. And we’re naked, because we’re also on a private beach.”

He can basically see it. The rain has turned into the noise of incoming waves, the bench is actually a soft deckchair and their feet are buried in the hot sand.

Nico catches on quickly. “Do we have cocktails?”

“Of course we do. We have fruity, sugary cocktails with little umbrellas in them and unlimited amounts of fresh fruit available for us to eat.”

“Yum,” Nico shuffles closer, their shoulders pressed together. “What else?”

“The wind is blowing, but it’s gentle. It’s just enough to dry us after we’ve gone for a swim in the crystal clear water,” Levi tilts his head to the side. “Except for your chest. That should always be wet.”

Nico chuckles, and the sound feels like heaven to Levi’s ears after the day he’s had.

“Your hair’s gone all curly and your cheeks are red from the sun,” Nico actually continues.

“Nice, so you look like a model and I look like a teddy bear,” Levi scoffs.

“You look good enough to eat,” Nico lowers his voice. “And maybe I will.”

Levi can feel himself blush, and he shuffles his legs on the floor, unable to sit still.

“We’re on our own, you can do what you want.”

“Just the two of us on a big beach.”

“Yeah,” Levi nods. “There’s nobody else. No bosses, no colleagues, no… dying patients.”

He knows he’s ruined the mood before he even finishes the sentence. They’re brought back to reality so harshly that it makes Levi’s head spin when he opens his eyes and they’re still in the hospital, and it’s still raining, and today was still a horrible day.

Guiltily biting his lower lip, he turns to the side to look at Nico, who’s in turn looking down at their joined hands with a sour expression on his face.

“Sorry,” Levi mumbles. “I messed that up.”

“It was good while it lasted,” Nico concedes. “What do you say we go home and order some takeout?”

It’s not sunbathing naked on the beach, but it’ll do. Levi smiles at Nico, leans in to leave a lingering kiss on his cheek, then gets up. Promptly throwing everything in his lap, including the empty tub of ice cream, to the floor.

“At least some things never change,” Nico shakes his head, but he’s laughing.

Levi is half ashamed of how clumsy he is and half proud of putting a genuine smile on Nico’s face. He helps Nico gather their things, then leads the way to the entrance.

It won’t change how today went, but spending some time with his favourite person while they eat some good food and laugh the pain away will surely make it better. Levi tugs him forward and Nico complains that he’s making him carry everything. It’ll be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> I normally would write something uplifting and cute to counteract how sad an episode was, but apparently not this week! But I definitely feel like it's better to acknowledge the bad feelings instead of just ignoring them, so we have some Schmico dealing with a hard day at work together <3
> 
> If you liked this, let me know with a comment or hit me up on [Tumblr](https://shesbreathless.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
